an to the glass, where she put up
a coil of hair in the knot it had escaped from.

"I had my doubts," Matt said, "about letting you come here, without
telling you just what the matter was; but mother thought you would
insist upon coming, any way, and that you would be embarrassed."

"Oh, _that_ was quite right," said Louise. "The great thing now is to
get away."

"I hope you won't let her suspect--"

"Well, I _think_ you can trust me for that, Matt," said Louise, turning
round upon him, with a hairpin in her mouth, long enough to give him as
sarcastic a glance as she could. If her present self-possession was a
warrant of future performance, Matt thought he could trust her; but he
was afraid Louise had not taken in the whole enormity of the fact; and
he was right in this. As a crime, she did not then, or ever afterwards,
fully imagine it. It may be doubted whether she conceived of it as other
than a great trouble, and as something that ought always to be kept from
her friend.

Matt went down stairs and found Sue Northwick in the library.

"I feel perfectly sure," she said, "that we shall hear of my father at
Springfield. One of the horses he got there has gone lame, and it would
be quite like him to stop and look up another in the place of it on the
same farm."

The logic of this theory did not strike Matt, but the girl held her head
in such a strong way, she drew her short breaths with such a smoothness,
she so visibly concealed her anxiety in the resolution to believe
herself what she said that he could not refuse it the tribute of an
apparent credence. "Yes, that certainly makes it seem probable."

"At any rate," she said, "if I hear nothing from him there, or we get no
news from Wellwater, I shall go there at once. I've made up my mind to
that."

"I shouldn't wish you to go alone, Sue," Adeline quavered. Her eyes were
red, and her lips swollen as if she had been crying; and now the tears
came with her words. "You could never get there alone in the world.
Don't you remember, it took us all day to get to Wellwater the last time
we went to Quebec?"

Sue gave her sister a severe look, as if to quell her open fears at
least, and Matt asked aimlessly, "Is it on the way to Quebec?"

Sue picked up the railroad guide from the desk where she had left it.
"Yes; it is, and it isn't." She opened the book and showed him the map
of the road. "The train divides at Wellwater, and part goes to Montreal
and part to Quebec